The Protection and Development of Crafts and Folk Art in Latvia
Latvia is a small country on the coast of Baltic Sea, but it has a long and interesting history and a rich traditional culture.The issue of maintaining national culture, identity and folk art has always been very important to Latvians.The development of the applied folk art in Latvia has deeply rooted in tradition and gone hand in hand with efforts to preserve the historical memory and national consciousness.Today folk applied art in Latvia can notionally be divided into two groups:1) traditional (past), and2) contemporary folk applied art.In Latvia, historically it has developed that craftsmanship is carried out both individually and in an organized manner.The individual craftsmen und organized craftsmen groups work both in the countryside and in the cities, but government and local municipalities support only organized craftsmen groups by offering working space, tools and covering tuition fee.The organized craftsman groups led by professional craftsmen, they worked according to a defined teaching program in which theoretical and practical lessons were provided for.In recent years the themes of applied arts training courses have been very much attuned to the demands, needs and interests of the people of today: knowledge is extended in such fields as cultural history, the basics of composition, the role of symbols in folklore, as well as issues that are important today, such as protection of design samples, cultural policy in Latvia in general and as applied to folk art, the skills of preparing projects and organizing applied arts events, including festivals.Craftsmen are happy to actively participate in exhibitions and public events in order to demonstrate their trade, to train beginners, to do custom work, and to publish their original compositions and technical descriptions in various printed media in Latvia.Exhibitions of folk applied art are vivid cultural events in Latvia.The exhibition activity has been bustling at all levels: exhibitions are being organized by groups themselves as well as by cultural institutions-on the level of a village, city or regional.National level exhibitions by genres or topics have become popular;the central exhibition in Latvia is the exhibition of applied arts organized during the Latvian Song and Dance Festival, recurring every five years.Since 1971, the Open-Air Museum annually hosts Craftsmens Fair, but for more creative and modern craftsmen, in August Museum organize Contemporary Crafts Festival:craftsmen who apply a wide variety of methods and materials, involving in their production of goods not only crafts skills, but also elements of technology development and modern design.To ensure that only the best pieces are displayed in the exhibitions, an Arts Council (jury commission) has been established.The council selects works for the exhibitions.Without special education to provide knowledge of our peoples traditions and teaching younger generation, inheritance of traditions and continuity will disappear.Accordingly, much thought is being given in Latvia to the development of a new cultural policy appropriate to the present age, in order to prevent the link with the traditional cultural heritage from being broken.
applied art Latvia individual craftsman organized manner,crafts fair
Aija Jansone
Institute of Latvian History at the University
国际会议
北京
英文
185-195
2017-08-01（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）